The present invention relates to a shock absorbing device, and more particularly to a shock absorbing device for a bicycle.
There is a known a kind of shock absorbing device for a bicycle as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, which is disposed in a front fork 80 for example, and includes a shaft 41 extending through six absorbing blocks 60 for example, and fixedly engaged within the front fork 80, an upper cap 50 having a hole defined therein for the shaft 41 to extend therethrough is engaged to an upper end of a first of the blocks 60 (the upper-most one) and a lower cap 52 having a hole defined therein for the shaft 41 to extend therethrough is engaged to a lower end of a sixth of the blocks 60 and a middle element 51 having a hole defined therein for the shaft 41 to extend therethrough is engaged between every two adjacent blocks 60 such that when the bicycle is ridden over a rugged road, the shock transferred from the rugged road is absorbed by deformations of the blocks 60.
Referring to FIG. 3, generally, the first two blocks 60, from up to down in the figures, are made of the most soft material, and third and the fourth blocks 60 are made of regular soft material and the fifth and the sixth blocks 60 are made of harder material, therefore, the first and the second blocks 60 are deformed no matter whether the shock is small or large. However, referring to FIG. 4, there are no limitations in the radial direction for the blocks 60 being deformed between the upper cap 50 and the middle elements 51, the two middle elements 51 and the middle element 51 and the lower cap 52, accordingly, the first and the second blocks 60 tend to absorb all the shocks until an elastic fatigue point thereof is reached such that the first and the second blocks 60 cannot be deformed anymore and will not return to their original configurations, that is, the shock will not be transferred to the third and the fourth blocks 60 unless the first and the second blocks 60 reach their elastic fatigue points of deformation, and this results in an early damages of the first and the second blocks 60. Similarly, referring to FIG. 5, the rest of the blocks 60 will be damaged by the same way.
The present invention provides a shock absorbing device which has an upper cap, a plurality of middle elements and a lower cap each of which has a skirt portion extending vertically so as to abut each other when the block disposed therebetween is deformed to avoid from reaching the elastic fatigue point of the block to mitigate and/or obviate the above-mentioned problems.